'British Fritzl' wins cut in minimum jail term

London, May 20 (ANI): A British man who repeatedly raped his two daughters and made them pregnant 19 times has won a cut in his minimum jail term.

The 56-year-old was due to serve a minimum term of 19 and a half years after receiving 25 life sentences for a campaign of abuse spanning more than quarter of a century, starting when his children were eight and 10.

Two of the eldest daughter's babies died the day they were born. Between them his daughters suffered five miscarriages and five terminations and doctors advised them not to have any more children by the man they did not know then to be their father, reports Sky News.

The Court of Appeal ruled the man was entitled to a five-year reduction. The unnamed man was jailed at Sheffield Crown Court in November.

Lord Justice Hughes, who admitted that the offences were "ghastly", told the appeals court that the minimum term imposed was too long.

He said victim impact statements made by the two women made for harrowing reading.

"This adds up to a near lifetime of sexual abuse by the defendant, of people who, as their father, he was supposed to be protecting," he said.

He, however, reckoned the minimum jail term handed down was in line with those imposed for "serious" murders and should be reduced to fourteen-and-a-half years.

The man, who called himself the "gaffer", has been compared with the Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter locked in a dungeon for 24 years as he fathered seven children with her. (ANI)